Book Seventeen Page 29

by Scott Story on January 28, 2013 at 12:01 am

As some of might have noticed, I’ve settled on a coloring style for this story arc.  It’s been called “cell shading” by a couple of folks, but it’s more simple than that.  In the pre-computer days, before gradients were very easy to use, good colorists had to be very ingenious and creative with their color choices and limited palettes.  The “Watchmen” would be a good example of this type of work, but at a very high level.  When Dave Stewart colors Hellboy, he generally uses a similar approach.

Anyway, this style as I use it less an homage to those early colorists than a wholesale exploration into what they did so right.  For those who have followed my rambles elsewhere, you will probably remember that I think most of today’s colorists have lost the understanding of contrast through color temperature, warm vs. cool coloring, and symbolic use of colors.  I don’t want to be part of that crowd.  I’m not saying all of today’s colorists are bad, far from it–just most of them.

I should also note that this was a ridiculously fun episode to draw—it doesn’t get more enjoyable than this for me.

Reminder: I’m opening up for ten commissions.  I’m talking about 11 x 14 inked drawings on bristol board of one character, no-background, for $30.00 paid in advance by Paypal. Adding characters and backgrounds raises the price, as does increasing the size to 11 x 17. Send me a message at scottstory at yahoo dot com, and we’ll get going with this. First come first served. Possibilities of what you want drawn are wide open, including your own original characters from comics or role-playing games. No hardcore, please.